As many of you know our church is striving to be ethnically diverse. This is a slow process for a bunch of former white suburban-ites and farm-town kids. But one of my only concerns as we proceed in this endevor is forgetting that it isn’t a terrible thing to be white, and in a lot of ways we should be proud of where we come from. This means we all have heritages that are important to our lives, everyone has a story that tells who we are in context of where we have been. That is important. I think that is in Jeff and Q’s minds as we go forward, so it is easy for me to get on board with their vision of multicultural churches…I just like to toot that horn from time to time because my family has a strong sense of history.
But anyway, I saw this article about diversity on CT this afternoon and found it to be fairly interesting. I’m only about half way done reading it, but one particular quote already grabbed my attention.
Larry Osborne’s response:
I have no beef with those who decry an older white congregation commuting into a changing neighborhood rather than handing over leadership to those who now live there. Such an island of ethnic or cultural homogeneity is the antithesis of the Body of Christ, and does nothing to show the world that we are his disciples.However, diversity is too often seen through just one lens—racial diversity. Many churches trumpeted as models of diversity are racially diverse but culturally homogeneous. They share a passion for urban values, a university mindset, or a bias for social activism. But those who don’t share those same passions are not only excluded, they’re often the object of negative comments or diatribes.
The great sign of biblical unity is not a heterogeneous gathering—it’s a body of Christ where traditions, languages, preferences, and customs are allowed full bloom; where those who don’t understand or enjoy what goes on in one setting still defend it as if it were their own, “because any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine!”
This in my mind might be somewhat controversial in light of doctorinal differences, but still, it sums up some of my ideas on diversity with better words than I have been able to come up with so far. My brain is still on the edge of figuring out how I feel about my role in a diverse church, but this summed up some of my concerns as well as ideals in a nice way.
Read the article if you get a chance…I thought it had some interesting insights on ideas of diversity.